AEW star Big Bill is now in the best shape of his career; he's been paired with Chris Jericho on TV and is even engaged to Lexy Nair, a positive turnaround following his disappointing final few months in WWE.
After being split from Enzo Amore, "Big Cass" was set to receive a push as a singles star (starting with a Daniel Bryan feud). However, his backstage conduct upset a lot of WWE Superstars and substance abuse issues ultimately left WWE with no other choice than to fire him.
Reflecting on how things ended for him in the sports entertainment giant while appearing on Talk Is Jericho, Big Bill said, "My drinking had gotten completely out of control, and I had done a good job hiding it for a while. I was incredibly depressed, self-medicating."
It was then he started showing up late to shows and, following an injury, he was left with more time on his hands...which led to him once again turning to alcohol.
"I thought I could fix this on my own, put the band-aids on, I'll just quit drinking; that's not how it works," he admitted before reflecting on the fateful European tour which led to his dismissal. "So then I got fired because...yeah, the European tour, on a bus, I was like just out of control."
Not helping matters were the personal issues he and Amore had developed after spending so much time together on the road. "So, we split up, I had a feud with Enzo, I cut a promo on Enzo, you know, when we broke up that was maybe one of my best promos I ever cut. I came to the back, people were congratulating me."
"Fast forward to 2018, the European Tour, people saw, they knew something was wrong, then I got released," Big Bill added, revealing that Adam Pearce told him he needed to speak to Mark Carrano and Vince McMahon. They offered him help for his issues, but he refused. "And then I continued to spiral out of control until the seizure in December."
With help from personal trainer Doug Lawson, Big Bill turned a corner. However, it was a long journey to get to that point.
"So I got fired, had money in the bank, and a roof over my head," he recalled. "Nothing fiscally to really worry about, and nothing but free time. I was a full-blown alcoholic at that time...I was drinking sun up to sun down every day."
"And then I went to that show in Philadelphia, House of Hardcore and I cut off my drinking earlier in the day, because I don't want to wrestle while having a ton of alcohol in my system and that was a huge mistake, because within a few hours, I had a seizure from alcohol withdrawal...I had that seizure and then I was like, I need to get myself together."
Needless to say, we're pleased to see that things are so much better for him now.